


The Price of Obedience

by madame_faust



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Dysfunctional Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-24 21:37:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18170180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madame_faust/pseuds/madame_faust
Summary: What was going through Luther's mind as he looked at Vanya from the top of the stairs?Major spoilers for 'Changes.'





	The Price of Obedience

**Author's Note:**

> Tom Hopper played this scene beautifully, so much so that I just HAD to know what he was thinking, or at least make an educated guess.

One thing about space: It was quiet. Too quiet, yes. Too lonely, _yes_. But predictable. The world turned on its axis every day; a reliable 24-hour cycle. Not much variation, as four-years worth of unopened hermetically sealed packages would attest to. The earth's axis was tilted, but it never turned upside-down. Not in four years. Now it had, flipped and spun and changed completely all in four days. Maybe he should have stayed up there.

Honestly, the revelation that Vanya had powers wasn't the craziest thing that had happened. Nope, that honor still went to Five hurtling through time and space to tell them they had less than a _week_ to avert the apocalypse. Compared to that, the revelation about Vanya was practically a non-issue.

Except that she'd hurt Allison - she almost _killed_ Allison, and might have permanently damaged her ability to speak, which tantamount to _crippling_ her. Yeah, maybe it was an accident; he'd had his share of those. Super-strength lent a whole new dimension to terrible twos, after all. But he'd been a kid. Vanya was an adult. Allison was her _sister_. How could she? Even if it was an accident, how _could_ she?

The others might have forgotten their training, but he hadn't: identify the threat. Isolate it. Contain it. If necessary, destroy it. He hoped like hell it didn't come to  _that_ ; she was still his sister, after all. One of them. And more similar to the rest of them than she'd ever been given credit for. 

When he saw her come in, though, he had a flicker of doubt; she looked like the same old Vanya, _exactly_ the same she'd been the same height since she was twelve. Only her face was different, pale, crumpled, her eyes were red, her hands were shaking. He'd never seen her look so wrecked. It might have been the pills she'd been given, which Pogo explained where to keep her emotions in check, suppress her abilities. Though Luther knew it was more than that; he'd never looked at her closely before.

It wasn't that he hadn't noticed her, thought about her, cared about her - despite what she claimed in her trashy tell-all book. They had. Of course they had. When your entire world consisted of one man, one robot, one genetically enhanced chimp, and six other kids, it was impossible _not_ to notice everyone all the time. It was just that, in Vanya's case, he'd been told to look away.

And he had. Obedient to the last.

"You're just as much a robot as Mom is," Klaus used to tease him, until Diego decked him over it, thus putting an end to _that_ discussion. Luther was under no illusions that Diego smacked Klaus for his sake; nope, he was just protective of Mom. And yeah, okay, Mom was a robot, programmed to obey her master. The big difference between the two of them was that Luther _chose_ his obedience. And why not? Dad wanted what was best for them, best for the world. Didn't he?

No, he hadn't looked too closely at her when they'd been kids, but even Dad's Number One wasn't a mindless puppet. He didn't look. Instead he listened.

Vanya used to practice her violin upstairs, in a storage closet near the rooftop conservatory. At first, the remote location was ideal; she kind of sucked at playing, when she first started, to be honest. The sound was incredibly screechy and annoying. Luther used to turn his record player up to drown her out. But after Five disappeared, the house got quiet. Really quiet. So quiet that he could hear her through the floorboards. He had to admit, she sounded pretty good.

He used to drift upstairs when she was practicing, listen to her through the door. Luther liked music. Not classical music in particular, but that was all Vanya played. It was pretty. 

Luther tried to keep his visits short, sporadic. He'd never live it down if the others found out about it. Diego would wonder why he was wasting his time when he could just get whatever records he wanted from the store (and he did love his record player, but there was something different - something special - about listening to real music being played by a real person), Allison might think he liked Vanya more than her (which was crazy, he didn't like anyone more than he liked Allison), Klaus would accuse him of being creepy (which, in all honesty, listening at keyholes to your sister's music practice totally was), but it was Ben's probably reaction that bothered him more than all the others. Ben would just look at him in confusion and ask why he didn't just knock on the door and tell her he liked her playing. 

He _should_. It would definitely take down the creep factor. But he couldn't. 

It went on like that for a while, Vanya practicing, Luther just happening to find himself in the hallway outside the room (shoes in hand so he didn't make too much noise on the stairs). But he got caught. That was another reason why it was best to obey Dad. No matter what you were doing, how much fun you were having, it wasn't worth it if you got caught. The heft of the consequences far, far outweighed whatever temporary happiness or relief disobeying might bring.

And he _always_ got caught.

As quiet as Luther tried to be, Dad was quieter. He didn't know he was behind him until he said his name. "Number One."

Luther jumped, crashing into the wall, knocking a dent into a section of wainscoting. The music stopped, but tellingly, Vanya didn't come out. Ironically, she probably didn't want anyone to know she was in there.

Dad beckoned him away. The sound of music was replaced by the rush of blood in his ears. Was this a punishable offence? Dad never specifically forbade him from listening to Vanya play the violin...just from noticing her, too much. Wasting time and attention that could be put to better use. More productive use. 

Luther followed Dad down the stairs and almost careened into him, not expecting them to stop abruptly outside his bedroom. Luckily, he stopped just short, hesitantly bringing himself to meet Dad's eyes; it had been over a year since he'd stopped having to look up at him, but no matter what, Dad always made him feel small.  

"If you want to listen to music, you have an allowance and a record player," Dad said, gesturing Luther toward his bedroom, with the implication that he ought to stay there. "You may buy some more albums if your tastes run toward Sibelius."

Luther just barely held himself in from letting out a relieved breath; not a punishment. Just a warning. And it was the relative mercy he was being shown that lent him the courage to offer an excuse.

"She - she's really good, Dad," he explained hesitantly. "She makes...really beautiful music."

Too far. The slight narrowing of his eyes and thinning of his lips made him stop, robbed him of his courage. He'd _noticed_. He'd _disobeyed_. Best to stop before there were consequences.

"Don't give her too much credit, Number One," Dad cautioned him, turning on his heel to go. " _She_ isn't making the sound; the violin is."

And he left; not wanting to expend too much of his own time and energy on useless things. Luther was, at the end of the day, an obedient kid. Dad knew he wouldn't go back upstairs and indeed he didn't. Instead, he went to the record store and bought three new albums: _Mozart Violin Concertos 3 & 5_. _Beethoven Complete Symphonies_. _Sibelius Violin Concertos_. For years they sat in their plastic wrappers, unopened until Vanya went to college. Then he played them, but it wasn't the same as listening outside the door. It _did_ make a difference, who was playing. 

Typical Dad; concentrate on the tool itself, and not the user. But a violin was just wood and catgut, without a player. Power was raw force without honing, development, practice. The player  _mattered_. 

Now they were both on the same side of the door, she wasn't playing, she was crying. Sobbing her eyes out. 

He almost faltered in his conviction, in his assurance that this was the right thing to do. As he held his arms out to her and she collapsed against him, she became once again little Vanya. Number Seven. Holding her breath behind a door, desperate not to be noticed until the sound of retreating footsteps assured her that there was no one outside to hear her.

But that wasn't right. It wasn't true. It wasn't her, anymore. Luther felt it in the vibrations on the floor that ebbed and flowed in the rhythm of Vanya's sobs. This time she wasn't the player. She was the instrument. The weapon.

He'd been given a mission, four years ago. Watch. Observe. Use your best judgement. Protect the earth.

"I'm sorry," he muttered and he meant it, he _did_ , but there was no other way. If there was, Dad would have found it. Thirty years ago, twenty-six years ago. Use or discard. He was practical like that. 

She hadn't heard him. He didn't think she heard him. So he said it again.

"I'm sorry," Again. "I'm sorry." _Again._ "I'm sorry."

Her breath hitched. A second of quiet. The floor stopped shaking.

Luther's fingers closed around Vanya's throat.


End file.
